I give this Soul to you, and you and you
by Shadows of Sorrowful Smiles
Summary: A suspicious mage is talking with Lucy, and Natsu doesn't like it. He knows something isn't right, in fact, everybody except Lucy does. But when the mage teleports everybody far away so that she can steal Lucy's Soul, it's up to him and Gray, along with some help with the twin slayers of Sabertooth to save their favorite Celestial Mage before she's taken away. Very slight NaLu
1. Chapter 1

**i dont own Fairy Tail. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy**

"This person is suspicious… what does she want with us?" Natsu grumbled from where he peeked out from behind the counter of the bar. Beside him, Mira chuckled evenly, but she didn't trust that girl either. They both glared at a short and plump brunette mage, standing beside Lucy who was chatting happily with her. "What does she want with _Lucy?_ She better not hurt her!"

Any other time, Mira would have made a sneaky comment about the dragon-slayer's obvious infatuation with the stellar spirit mage, but she too was worried about the newcomer's intentions. What if she somehow destroyed the little amount of progress she'd made on Natsu and Lucy's relationship!? "Oh, no!" The bar maid gasped in horror. Lucy and the brunette glanced over at them, but while their friend's gaze was warm and questioning, the brunette's was hard and loathing. Then Lucy turned back to her and the malice was gone, the cheery expression back in less than a second.

"Something's wrong with that mage," Gray observed from where he perched on a stool a couple feet from Mira and Natsu. Juvia, always close by to her beloved ice mage, nodded her agreement.

"She seems way too obsessed with Love Rival. Juvia thinks she's plotting something."

"As do I," Master Makarov sighed as he stood next to his children. "She seems to be radiating dark magic, the same way Zeref does. Perhaps that is why we have this feeling of unease. She certainly hasn't done anything out of the ordinary to seem like a bad person."

"Well if she uses dark magic like Zeref, that already makes her evil—" Natsu declared loudly, resulting in Mira slapping her palm over his mouth and casting a worried glance over at the two female mages. They didn't seem to notice, so she removed her hand, "—and if she's evil, then we can't let her be around Luce!" he finished without skipping a beat. With that, he hopped out from his hiding place, about to lunge toward his best friend and the brunette mage but Gray quickly made a wall of ice, and then effectively trapped him in an ice box. Natsu slammed his fist in the wall and shattered it, but he turned to Gray with a pissed expression. "Why did you do that, stripper?" he demanded.

Gray looked shocked, staring at his hands, "I- I didn't. I mean, I didn't mean to. All of a sudden, my hands just… moved." Before he finished even his sentence, Natsu was flying toward him, his fist on fire and his face a mask of confusion. The ice mage slipped to the side just in time to see Juvia slam a wave of water onto Mira, and to see the Master grow to his large size and lower his fists onto Laxus and Gajeel. Everywhere in the guild, mages were randomly attacking each other, but it was clear from the horrified expressions and strangled apologies that none of this was on purpose. The only two not fighting were Lucy and the strange brunette, the latter of which was grinning maniacally.

"What's going on!?" Lucy shrieked, wrestling her gaze from her guild mates to the brunette. "Nuka, what are you doing?" Nuka smiled apologetically at Lucy, the facial expression change dramatic.

"Lucy-san, I'm very sorry about this, but I already told you: my family is going to die. This is the only way I can save them. Please forgive me." With a wave of her hand and another gasp from the blonde, the members of Fairy Tail suddenly found themselves immobilized and lifted into the air. In less than a second, they were all thrown out the guild doors and a mile away from the guild. All of them save for Lucy.

XxX

"That bitch!" Natsu screamed, struggling to tug himself out of the garbage bag he'd landed in. "What is she planning?" nobody had time to answer him as a small explosion the size of an egg suddenly boomed right in front of him, sending a shower of coal black and deep blue sparkles down and forming a sheet of aged-looking yellowed paper that floated over to Natsu. His onyx eyes found the hastily scrawled handwriting and he passed it to Levy without pausing. He didn't read; he saved that for the smarter people in the guild.

"Oh my Mavis," Levy breathed as she scanned the paper. Gajeel leaned over her shoulder and his eyes widened. He took the sheet of paper carefully from her hands and began to read out loud:

"_**Dear Fairy Tail, you're probably wondering why all of a sudden you started attacking each other and why I transported you away. The answer to that is simple: Zeref has kidnapped my family and I need to save them. The only way I can do this is to bring him Lucy. More specifically…**_" here, Gajeel paused, his voice thick with emotion and he hastily shot a pained look at his fellow dragon-slayer (**Wendy**) and she met his gaze with sad (**purple?**) eyes. "_**More specifically, to bring him her Soul. I knew that as her family, you guys wouldn't let me do that so I had to move you away. Far enough away so that I could take her soul and leave before you managed to get back. Don't bother coming back; none of you are strong enough to beat me in a fight so trying to save Lucy is futile. Just leave, and forget about her. I will take her Soul, and there is nothing you or anybody else can do to save her.**_"

Collective gasps of horror and fear were heard, and then simultaneously, everyone turned to Natsu. The fire dragon-slayer's eyes were nothing more than pinpricks of light in his rage. His fists were clenched; so that his nails dug into his palm and a thin trickle of blood seeped out. He inhaled a ragged breath, and then he was just gone. The rest of Fairy Tail climbed up to their shaky feet, and raced away after him.

They had a friend to save, after all.

XxX

"Natsu!" Lucy screamed, thrashing around in her ropes. Nuka snarled and tied them tighter, before pushing the gag into the blonde's mouth. Lucy's voice, strangled and unintelligible through the gag, continued to cry out for her partner until the small brunette harshly smacked her.

"Quiet, Lucy!" she hissed. Lucy threw her old friend a look of hate, much like the one Nuka had given Mira and Natsu not so long ago. "Lucy, please. You know what he'll do to them if I don't do this to you. He will kill them! I have to save them Lucy! I have to!"

"I don't want to die!" Lucy retorted but it didn't come out clear enough to be understood. "I have a life here at Fairy Tail! I have a family here—!"

"And if you don't let me do this, I won't have one at all!" Nuka snapped. Lucy stopped moving as tears, real tears fell from the girl's eyes. Nuka wiped away a tear angrily, turning away from Lucy just as Natsu burst through the doors of the guild, leaving a trail of fire behind. He turned to face them, and both girls flinched at the sheer anger and hatred in his onyx eyes. His gaze found Lucy, and the ropes holding her down and draining away her magic, and the hate and anger seemed to magnify as he shifted his gaze to the dark mage.

Nuka cursed as Gray and Erza appeared through the hole that Natsu's entrance had created and fixed their attention on her. She waved her hand again, suspending the two as they were held in place, so that she could focus solely on Natsu and her sacrifice.

"Why are you doing this to Lucy!?" the fire mage roared. Nuka stepped in front of her captive, forming the dark symbol of shadows with her hands. Without answering, she summoned a shadow blade—very much like the one that Future Rogue had used to kill Future Lucy, how bitterly ironic that was—and threw it at him. Natsu dodged and charged; his right fist stretched out and on fire. As he flew closer, he failed to notice Nuka form another blade, and this one was inky black and oozing shadows and dark blue sparks like the letter was.

"I need to save my family! I will not let you stop me from doing that!" she screamed as she thrust the shadow blade up at him. Natsu realized what would happen if he kept moving and dug in his heels, but he lobbed the ball of fire at her. Nuka giggled and disappeared, leaving the fireball to fly straight at Lucy, who was still tied in place and looking utterly frustrated at her lack of ability to help her friends in this unfair fight to save her.

"Lucy!" suddenly, Gray was in front of her, and he formed an ice shield instantly to block the ice. Natsu's relief caused him to sigh when he realized that Nuka must have been so focused on beating him that she'd let down her magic suspending, and accidently freed Erza and Gray. _Thank Mavis._ His relief was short-lived when a furious Nuka reappeared beside Gray. Before the Ice-make mage could make a move to defend himself, she made the dark iron symbol, and a sphere of metal popped out of nowhere, spitting out sparks and growing disturbing spikes as it spun toward him. Gray cried out as the sphere hit his arm, cutting straight into the flesh and boring a small hole in his arm. The blood hardened into a series of tiny metallic spheres like the first one, and they flew around his body; darting in and hitting him with sparks and cutting with their spikes.

"I _will_ have this sacrifice, and it _will_ be Lucy, so just give up and go away! You cannot beat me!" Nuka growled as Gray bubbled out an apology, blood dripping steadily from his lips and wounds.

"Clearly, you haven't met Fairy Tail before," Erza told her. A flash of light surrounded her, and then she was in her Heaven's Wheel Armor. The red haired mage opened her eyes, dark and frightening. "We never give up. Especially when one of our own is in danger." With those words, Titania lunged forward, baring out her swords and swinging at Nuka.

Seeing that the dark mage was occupied, Natsu crept over to Lucy, lighting a small fire to try and singe away the ropes. Tears of frustration were gritted back when the ropes only grew thicker and tighter around Lucy which elicited a small gasp of pain from the celestial wizard. Natsu then pulled out her gag.

"You alright?" he asked worriedly. Lucy gave him a tired smile.

"Fine," she assured him, "but my magic power is almost gone. I'm feeling really weak and really tired right now…" her eyes slipped shut, but her chest continued to rise and fall. Natsu sighed again, and turned to Gray, who watched the two of them with a far off look in his blue eyes.

"What about you?" Natsu asked wearily. He knew Erza was strong; Erza could handle Nuka while they figured out how to get the magic-draining ropes off of Lucy before she could die. Gray pushed himself up and nodded, staggering over to Lucy to look at her bonds. He touched the rope and examined it. Well, Gray could figure it out. Natsu wasn't exactly the thinking type. Better to subdue Nuka first and get her to turn off the magic –draining ropes.

He turned around, and almost broke down when he saw Erza half-slumped across a table, with Nuka standing and panting a few feet away. Broken swords and splotches of blood from both girls dotted the floor of the guild. Nuka, huffing and glaring at the fallen Erza, saw the Salamander's look of shock and despair and let out a harsh laugh that almost knocked her battered body over.

"I told you, just give up. Lucy is the only one I need to kill, but I won't just stop myself if your own lives are in danger," Nuka told him. Her brown hair swirled around in a torrent of wind, and as the wind surrounded her, she began to change.

No longer was she wearing a tank top and shorts, now she was dressed in armor that was made of metal and darker than even her shadows. Natsu could see the swirl of magic inside the armor, seeing that although the shape was the same as what Erza wore almost every day; this was clearly something on an entirely different level. A silvery cloak hung around her neck, and her brown hair was now black, with silver and dark blue streaks. Her eyes glowed onyx and the fully recharged Nuka summoned a shadow blade twice as large as the others. Another sphere, this time bright red with yellow sparks appeared. A twin sphere of a golden color that resembled Lucy's hair popped out from the tip of the sword, and the two spheres spiraled away; the red one toward Natsu and the yellow one toward Lucy.

Before it could hit him, Natsu sent out a burst of fire and shouted out a warning to Gray. (**A/N: feel free to skip if you want. Anybody wondering where the rest of the guild is? Me too. I wonder where they went. Like seriously, completely forgot that they were supposed to be here. So why don't we send them in and everyone can fight Nuka together? No. they're trapped in a barrier because Fried is under Nuka's spell and he's put a rune around them. Buuuuuuuuuuuuut we still have our favorite twin slayers! Enter Sting and Rogue!**)

Gray turned when his rival warned him, but the yellow sphere was suddenly hit with a spike of white energy. The sphere exploded, and Gray was able to put an ice shield up around him and Lucy just in time to save them from getting hit.

He glanced over his shield to see the twin slayers of Sabretoothe (**I know that's not how it's spelt but that seems more natural so it's the way I spell it.**) standing around Nuka.

Sting and Rogue were each in their Dragon Force, with white mist and black shadows swirling and sweeping across them respectively. Sting jerked his head toward Lucy, but kept his cobalt gaze on the dark mage in front of him, "How's Blondie doing?"

"She's alright, but if we can't get these ropes off she will run out of magical power and die," Gray informed him, standing up. Sting sucked in his breath in surprise, and then let it out in a slow chuckle.

"That's harsh. Who's this freaky chick?"

"We have no idea. All we know is that she wants to kill Lucy, and we're not doing so well preventing that from happening," Natsu growled from where he was trying to melt the red sphere. It only seemed to increase in size, and the speed at which it spun which both annoyed and worried Natsu. Seeing that the fire mage was too dense to realize what was happening, Gray created a cannon of ice and fired off several cannonballs, watching in satisfaction as the red sphere shattered.

Nuka screamed in frustration as two of her spheres were now broken, and that Gray seemed to have figured out how to effectively destroy them, but she waved her arms and spun the cloak around, revealing four more spheres, and they were all mottled silver and pale yellow. Natsu was the first to attack them, but when his fist connected with the first sphere Lucy let out a shrill cry of pain. Natsu winced and pulled away, his gaze flitting to her anxiously. Nuka sneered. "Seems as if you've realized; anything you do to these spheres gets transported to Lucy. Really, I should thank you. You're doing my job for me."

And then the spheres attacked, one flying toward each mage except for Lucy. Nuka, seeing her opponents safely occupied, stepped forward and reached out to Lucy. The poor celestial mage was panting, her face pale and sweating, eyes tightly shut and breathing ragged. Her hands clenched in fists at her side and she was moaning, hissing in pain. Nuka stared at her old friend regretfully. She didn't want to kill Lucy, but she didn't want her family to die either. It just wasn't fair.

"YOU BASTARD! GET AWAY FROM LUCY OR I'LL KILL YOU!" Natsu bellowed, dodging every attack from his mottled sphere while fighting the itch to let loose on it. Nuka glanced at him over her shoulder, and set a palm on the rope across her chest. The rope dissolved into silver mist at her touch, and Lucy fell into her arms.

"LUCY! NO!" Gray cried, freezing his own sphere into an ice box, much like the one he'd been forced to set Natsu into earlier. "EVERYBODY PASS ME THE SPHERES AND GO GET HER!" wordlessly, the dragon-slayers slipped their palms against a flat patch and sent the spheres flying toward Gray, who expanded the ice box to let them in.

"ROAR OF THE WHITE/SHADOW/FIRE DRAGON!" they shouted, creating a torrent of fire, surrounded by extremely hot white spikes and shadow spears and blades that rushed at Nuka. The dark mage cursed and transported herself to the other side of the guild. That blast would kill her, and if it hit Lucy it would kill her too, but make it impossible to collect her Soul. Lucy whimpered from in her arms, and Nuka responded by throwing her to the ground and summoning a shadow knife. It was incredibly unfortunate that three dragon-slayers were there, and she was already far behind her estimated time, so she needed to kill Lucy and steal the Soul as quickly as possible so she could escape. Nuka pierced the front of Lucy's shirt with the knife, sliding it down quickly and carefully. The dragon-slayers hadn't noticed where she'd moved to yet, but with their noses it wouldn't be too long. Once the shirt was slit through the front, she cut off the sleeves and the sides exposing Lucy's bra and chest. Nuka inhaled deeply and immediately placed her hand on the blonde's belly, knowing that her scent was probably many times stronger now that part of her clothing was gone.

"Zeref, Zeref, watashi no bengo o kiite, watashi wa anata ga kyoju suru tame ni tamashi o motte iru. Rushi no tamashi, watashi no gisei o toru," Nuka whispered. She repeated the chant twice, and then sent a final, apologetic look toward the limp blonde. "Lucy… gomen ne, Lucy. I'm so very sorry."

Without warning, a hand grabbed her neck, tighter than a vice grip and lifted her off of Lucy. Nuka hissed and thrashed around, startled to see a man with bright orange hair, glasses, and a full suit holding onto her.

"Loki!" she heard Natsu gasp. "You caught her! She's trying to kill Lucy—!"

"I will kill her!" Nuka screamed. Her frustration at failure for the umpteenth time bubbled up and out and she swung her shadow knife at the lion spirit holding her up, causing him to drop her. "_I will take that Soul! Tamashi setto shado bakudan!" _she thrust her hand down onto Lucy's stomach again, leaving behind another mottled yellow sphere, only this one was yellow and black, with spots of crimson covering it. "As pissed as you've all made me, I still only need Lucy dead so I'll take the liberty of transporting us all safely away~" Nuka waved her hands and the three dragon-slayers plus Gray and Loki appeared at her side, and then they all winked away from the guild just as the sphere sank into the flesh of Lucy's stomach and then a deafening boom sounded just as they left.

XxX

"There," Nuka sighed, watching the plume of smoke rise from the roof of the guild from their perch on top Lucy's apartment. "It is done."

"Lu… Lucy…" Natsu whispered, realizing what they had just left behind. He tried to scramble to his feet, but grief and anger and fatigue held him down, so he writhed in his agony on the rooftop, trying to hold back tears.

"Blondie…" Sting winced. Rogue was staring at the fire glistening in Fairy Tail, and Gray was struggling to hold back tears. Loki didn't, and his form started to fade slowly; he gasped in shock and Natsu and Gray realized that he was fading back into the Spirit World because his master was dead.

Because his master was dead.

Lucy.

Oh god no. Natsu fully broke down on the roof top, and then it occurred to him that maybe, _maybe_, the lion spirit was leaving to go check on Lucy, or to get her help. Maybe she wasn't dead. Maybe she was still alive, alive and in pain and crying out for help. That one hope lifted him to his feet and propelled him forward, to the guild so that he could save her.

"It's no use," Nuka stated coldly as Gray prepared to do the same. "She's dead. Her Soul, I can feel it, it's coming. And it's…" her eyes widened. "It's splitting into three…" her voice cracked in awe. Sting, Rogue, and Gray watched as a small yellow orb of glowing, pulsing light approached them. The orb had a face; they could see it was very similar to that of the deceased spirit mage. "Lucy's Soul…" Nuka breathed… "It's so beautiful." The Soul drifted to Gray and the face smiled. Gray's heart cracked, and he reached out to touch the face, knowing that this could be the last chance he'd get to see Lucy's smile. It pressed against his fingers, smiling and humming, and then it floated around to Sting and Rogue and did the same. It finally turned to Nuka, with the soft smile replaced by a remorseful frown. The Soul made a low keening noise, and then the four watched as it slowly began to stretch, and form into three smaller globules of pulsing yellow. One stayed with Nuka, and the other two drifted over to Gray. One of the two nosed its way into the pocket of his shorts, the other just floated near his head, with the face turned toward the guild.

"Lucy's Soul…" Gray whispered. "This means she's dead. And Natsu… he must be just now finding this out…"

XxX

"Lucy!" Natsu exploded into the guild and sucked in the fire from the explosion.

He was met with silence, and the unmistakable tang of blood.

"No…" it dripped down from the walls, down from the ceiling, covering the floor and him. Lucy's blood. "No… Lucy…" he saw her in the corner where Gajeel always hid and watched Levy secretly, saw her limp form lying in a crushed heap on the ground. Natsu ran to her side, already reaching out but to check for a pulse at this point would have been useless because it was painfully obvious that he wouldn't have found one, so he just grabbed her shoulders and pulled her destroyed body up to his, pressing them together in his hug of heartbreak. Sobs wracked his body and they only grew when he made the painful revelation that this was Lucy, _his_ Lucy; not another copy of her from the future who was dead. This was the real Lucy. Gone. Sorrow choked through him and he cried onto Lucy's body as he hugged her.

This was his fault. He knew something was wrong with Nuka but he ignored it and now his best friend was dead because of it.

"Nooooooo…."

(**aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa I can't imagine anything angsty that he could say in this situation so he just repeats 'no' over and over again. Sorry…. And… yeah sorry**)

"Natsu…" the fire mage glanced up to see his rival/best friend, flanked by the twin slayers of Sabretoothe standing a few feet away. Nuka was nowhere in sight, and he could only hope they'd managed to kill her.

"What?" the deadness, the lack of emotion in his own voice, it startled him. He shook his head and pulled the lifeless body closer to him. Lucy, Lucy, she was dead.

The ice-make mage reached into the pocket of his shorts and pulled out a pulsing golden orb. Natsu grew interested when the orb lifted up from his hand at hummed at him. Gray chuckled softly and then the orb turned and flew to Natsu, and the fire mage sucked in a painful breath. It had Lucy's face.

"This is a part of Lucy's Soul," Gray clarified, revealing another small yellow globule near his face. "It split into three parts; one for you, one for me, and one for Nuka."

"A part of Lucy?" Natsu whispered, as the orb floated up to him and hummed.

_Yes._

Natsu dropped his jaw. "It talked…" he told the other three. Gray smiled fondly at his own Soul fragment.

"Yeah, mine speaks to me too. She sounds just like Lucy, and it's almost as if it actually is Lucy."

"But it's not," Natsu finished, displaying the body in his arms. "Lucy is dead." The Soul fragment floated up to his ear.

_I may be dead, but I'm still in this Soul. Don't you know what a Soul is? Of course you don't._ it made a noise that sounded like Lucy laughing, Natsu noticed with a bittersweet smile. _You've probably never heard of a Soul. I'm going to stay with you forever like this, though. Forever, Natsu. A Soul doesn't ever die._

"That's nice," Natsu murmured sadly, petting Lucy's bloody hair. The Soul hesitated, and then it gently bobbed forward until it pressed against his cheek. He inhaled sharply. The orb was practically oozing Lucy's sweet scent. It made him tilt his head against the Soul as it purred, releasing more of the sweet smell. "Luce…" he gently set down her body and reached out for the orb with shaking hands. It smiled at him and flew into his cupped palms, purring louder. Natsu sobbed and held it up to his chest, feeling as if he was holding his beloved partner to himself instead of her dead spirit.

Gray's own fragment settled onto his shoulder. _I'm sorry I died, Gray. I didn't mean to hurt you guys like this._ He laughed, raising one hand to pet her.

"It's ok, Lucy. In a way, you're still here. That's all we need. Besides, I doubt you would have been able to control dying. She put a freakin bomb inside of you. Nobody could have survived that."

_I know. Do you think Natsu will be sad forever? I hate knowing he's so upset over me. Even Sting and Rogue too, they look like they blame themselves that I died._

Sting and Rogue were watching the tender communication between the two stricken mages and the Soul of their dead partner in a kind of awed grief.

"Too bad we were too late to save the Blondie," Sting commented gruffly, as he turned to the guild doors to leave. "I'm sorry. I wish we could have done more to help. But," he added with a soft wink as he glanced at the two whom he'd once considered his rivals, "I can tell you're both happy with this. Not that she's dead, but that she's still here."

"I agree with Sting," Rogue nodded, moving to stand next to his partner. "My apologies for the death of your comrade. I hope you can heal, or find closure someday."

And then they were gone, leaving Gray and Natsu, and Lucy's dead body, to sit and find closure within the little particles of a celestial mage left behind.

**Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand cut! -**

**Ugh that has to be one of my worst endings ever! I'm sorry… I feel like I totally ruined the whole story because I couldn't come up with a good ending… I just let it fade away like how I imagined a movie would fade, with the two of them crying to their little bits of Lucy…**

**Aaaa sad. This wasn't even a tenth of the amount of NaLu I wanted for this story. At first, I'd planned for Natsu to come in at the time where the bomb was being placed into Lucy, and then have her live at the end, and then where her Soul fragments were placed back into her body and she was revived.**

**But alas, none of that happens.**

**Hint hint, I'm going to make a sequel! Don't know what I'll call it yet but… expect it in about... a month or so. Not as a second chapter for this, it's going to be posted as its own story. Anyways, hope you enjoyed! And once again, apologies ensued for the crappy ending…**

**Also, translation for what Nuka said after cutting open Lucy's shirt : Zeref, Zeref, hear my plead, I have a Soul for you to reap. Take Lucy's Soul, my sacrifice. **

**And then later, when she's putting that bomb into Lucy before transporting them all away : Soul Stealing Shadow Bomb.**


	2. Sequel Update!

**Hey, hey, hey! I finished the sequel, well part one at least! It has the makings of a Gruvia, so if you want to check it out, it's called Soul Song. Thanks for being patient and reviewing!**


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